1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer program product, system, and method for determining whether a selected backup image satisfies a retention policy.
2. Description of the Related Art
A storage management application, such as IBM* Tivoli* Storage Manager (TSM), may be implemented on a storage management server. The storage management application may manage storage requirements for a plurality of client nodes that are coupled to the storage management server via a network. (IBM and Tivoli are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp. in the United States and other countries).
The storage management application may create and manage a repository for backup images. A backup image stores files needed to recover a state of a machine, including the current operating state of the machine, data, programs, and configuration settings, that are backed up, archived, migrated, or otherwise copied from the client nodes to the storage management server. The recovery of a backup image at a client node allows the client to operate with the state of the machine represented in the image. The storage management server may store machine components, such as programs, files, configuration settings, in one or more storage pools and may use a database stored in the storage management server for tracking information about the stored machine components.
The storage management application may perform incremental backup, incremental archiving, migration, or incremental copying of images from the client nodes to the storage management server. For example, if the storage management application comprises a backup application then the backup application may perform incremental backup operations in which image components are backed up only if the files have changed since a previous, periodic full backup, where the periodic full backups may be made on a weekly, monthly or some other periodic basis.
A Bare Machine Recovery (BMR) is defined as the ability to execute a recovery operation on a computer without using the operating system that is currently loaded on the computer. BMRs are performed from full or incremental backups. However, a selected backup image may not be useful and may have problems or errors that will prevent a successful restoration.
There is a need in the art to assess the suitability of a selected backup image and the likelihood of success of a recovery operation using a selected backup image.